Reforms needed to bring SME sector in tax net: experts

LAHORE: There is a need to ease the system through reforms and separate rules and regulations for the SME sector in order to bring it into the tax net, besides easy loans facility for the sector from commercial banks.

These views were expressed by the experts in the Jang Economic Session on ‘What reforms required for the SME sector’. The panellists were Javeria Qais, Lubna Hayat, Tayyab Ali Khan, Inam Sheikh and Mian Muhammad Ali while the session was hosted by Sikandar Lodhi.

Javeria Qais said that SME sector has potential employment generation. So there is need to increase investment in the sector through confidence. She stressed the need of required infrastructure for the SME sector of Pakistan. She suggested mandatory licences for the SME sector, besides ensuring raw material supply to increase employment generation. She called for promotion of handmade products for the development of the sector.

Lubna Hayat said that SME sector was never facilitated due to which its share in GDP was only 16 percent as compared to India 62 percent and Singapore 160 percent. She called for reviewing the credit financing and implementation on regulations. She suggested promoting the social public private partnership concept likewise Australia. She stressed the need of bringing the informal and SME sectors in tax net while the government did not have any mechanism for the SME sector.

Tayyab Ali Khan said the SME sector was a source of employment generation but a single policy could not be effective to all industries so the policies should be made in accordance with the small and large industry requirements. He said the SME sector was not on government priority list that is why it was facing numerous challenges. He called for youth skill development and developing entrepreneurial approach in them.

Inam Sheikh said that promotion of business culture instead of job culture was the need of the hour to strengthen the economy and better results could be achieved by facilitating the SME sector.

He said the role of agriculture sector was vital for the promotion of the SME sector so there was a need to change policies accordingly. He said that SME growth could not be possible without financial support.

Mian Muhammad Ali said that SME sector fulfilled 85 percent of industrial needs of the country so that this sector should also be focused on besides large scale industry. He suggested abolishing all extra taxes other than sales and income taxes besides provision of manufacturing facilities to promote the SME sector. He said Chinese SME promotion model should be adopted.